Game communication systems have been made available in recent years in which gaming machine units are connected to each other through a communication link. Players operating the respective gaming machine units are able to enjoy playing games in a common game field. An example of such a game communication system is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. 11-033230.
Typical gaming machine units of the game communication system include speaker channels for reproducing stereophonic sounds and sound tracks, for example, through speakers as BGM during the game. The purpose of stereo BGM is to make the games more enjoyable and exciting by stimulating the player's auditory sense as well as his or her visual sense.
The conventional game communication systems, however, only supply performance commands to the printed circuit board mounted in each gaming machine unit. The game communication systems do not provide control of the printed circuit boards so as to reproduce the sound tracks synchronously at each of the gaming machine units. A delay in the performance timing among the printed circuit boards associated with data communication, for example, may cause the sound tracks for the BGM to be out of sync. The delay of performance timing performed or reproduced by the printed circuit boards may also be caused by a difference in timing when a coin or token is inserted. As a result, the sound field provided through the game communication system becomes muffled. Hence, the performance or reproduction of the sound tracks as BGM does not contribute to the auditory enhancement of the game.
In addition, the conventional game communication systems are capable of performing/reproducing only a limited number of BGM sound tracks. The sound tracks are performed/reproduced in a predetermined order. In this regard, the identical sound tracks are repeatedly performed/reproduced. Again, this does not contribute to the auditory enhancement of the game.
Conventional game communication systems deal with each gaming machine unit as a single sound system (Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. 8-172700). Under such circumstances, the performance or reproduction of the sound tracks as BGM does not improve the sound effects since the communication system is considered as a single sound system having gaming machine units connected to each other.
As an example, the same sound field is provided in each gaming machine unit, wherein the sound fields are a reproduction of the same melody. As a result, the sound available in the entire game communication system does not provide good spatial effects. Therefore, even (for example, movies, films and/or demonstrations displayed on the gaming machine units in an attraction mode that are out of game play), will not acoustically attract a person to play the game when he or she is visually away from the gaming machine units. Moreover, when players simultaneously encounter an event (e.g., a jet plane passes by a cartoon in the gaming field during game play) in the same gaming field during game play, the depth of the gaming field cannot be produced acoustically as a sound effect.